Loelia Ponsonby
|occupation = Principal Secretary, '00' Section |affiliation = British Secret Service |status = Retired Fleming ----- Active Continuity |role = Ally |portrayed = |first_appearance = Moonraker (novel) |last_appearance = Trigger Mortis }} :"Later she had kissed him goodbye with a sudden warmth, and for the hundredth time Bond had wondered why he bothered with other women when the most darling of them all was his secretary." ::― Ian Fleming. Loelia Ponsonby, nicknamed 'Lil', was a fictional Principal Secretary of the 'Double-O' ('00') Section, an ultra-covert Black Ops unit within the British Secret Service. She acted as James Bond's shared personal secretary in several of Ian Fleming's novels from Moonraker (1955) until On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1963) and subsequently appeared in period continuation novels Devil May Care (2008) and Trigger Mortis (2015). Biography Fleming novels Introduced in Moonraker, Loelia Ponsonby works in the Double-O Section office on the eighth floor of the Secret Service headquarters in London. She is described as "tall and dark with a reserved, unbroken beauty to which the war and five years in the Service had lent a touch of sternness". A motherly figure to the Double-Os, Ponsonby was the secretary to 007, 008 and 0011. Often the object of their romantic advances, Ponsonby had no intention of becoming emotionally involved with any man with such a short life-expectancy. She maintained a dignified distance from the men, but secretly loved them all equally and worried when they were in danger. She was quite superstitious and on one occasion warns Bond not to fly on Friday 13th. Professionally, she was a member of the small company of Principal Secretaries who had access to the innermost secrets of the Service – "The Pearls and Twin-set" as they were called behind their backs by the other girls. Her closest friend and colleague is M's secretary, Miss Moneypenny. Hinted to be a lover of architecture, she constantly reminds Bond that she had been with the Georgian Group to Italy. Having pondered settling down since Moonraker, Loelia finally retires from the Service after marrying a member of the Baltic Exchange and is replaced by Mary Goodnight. Continuity novels After a literary absence of almost 45 years, Loelia Ponsonby appears in Sebastian Faulks' 2008 continuation novel Devil May Care. Set in 1967, 21 months after the events of The Man with the Golden Gun , Loelia Ponsonby has returned to her post as Double-O Section secretary after giving birth to two healthy boys. After being told to get a mechanic out to the airport to replace his car windows, she chides Bond for his reckless driving and bristles when he playfully calls her 'Lil'. She would subsequently be mentioned in Anthony Horowitz' 2015 novel Trigger Mortis, set during 1957 in the immediate aftermath of Goldfinger. Ponsonby is contacted by Agent 279 - going under the pseudonym "Dickson" - to arrange his customary game of golf at Swinley with Bond during his annual fortnight's leave from Hong Kong. Behind the scenes For the EON Productions film series, Loelia Ponsonby's flirtatious relationship with Bond is transferred to and replaced by Miss Moneypenny. Ponsonby nearly made an appearance in the 1995 James Bond film GoldenEye, but she was removed from the final draft. The name of the character may be based on the Duchess of Westminster of the same name. References Category:James Bond characters Category:Literary characters Category:Moonraker characters Category:Diamonds Are Forever characters Category:From Russia with Love characters Category:On Her Majesty's Secret Service characters Category:Allies Category:Unadapted Characters Category:Devil May Care characters Category:SIS Personnel Category:British Category:Female Characters Category:Forever and a Day characters